Loveless Ages

Chapter Four

“So we know what the injection is made of.” Josh says. “But what do we do with that information?”

“I don’t know. You’re the science person. I’m just the one who gets the information.” I say.

“Well it isn’t enough.” He says. “Are you sure he’ll come around?”

“I have no idea what he’s going to do. He’s unpredictable.” I say. We are sitting in my library talking about what we know when there are three loud knocks on the door.

“Give me a sec.” I say. I walk over to the front door and open it. There is no one there. I try to step outside to see if there is anyone on the block but I bump into a box that is on the ground in front of me. I look down. It is a wooden box that has been painted black. I look around before bending down to pick it up. I bring it inside and close the door.

“Delivery?” Josh asks. He looks confused.

“An unofficial one.” I say. I pull off the lid of the box and see disks in clear cases and a small plastic box with some memory cards in it. At the bottom of the box is a piece of paper with a few sentences written on it.

 Here I enclosed all the information you need. You will need a DVD player to watch some of these things and a computer. I don’t know if you have access to a DVD player. If not, get access. Don’t look for me. If I want to speak to you I’ll find you. Be discreet. There you have it Princess.

             I can hear the whole thing in his voice, especially the last sentence. I smile and put the note into my pocket.

“What?” Josh asks. “What did it say? Is this from him?”

“Yeah.” I nod.

“Can I see what he said?” Josh asks, I take the note out and hand it to me. He reads it and seems to be perplexed towards the end of the note.

“Princess?” He asks. “A term of endearment?” I laugh.

“No. More like a term of mockery.”

“Mockery?” He asks.

“Yeah. That’s just how he is.” I shrug.

“Are you two friends?” He asks. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” I say. “Do you want to watch these?”

“Yeah.” He says. We go into the movie room and use the DVD player to watch the disks that Xander sent. We sit for hours in the room watching the disks. They are video diaries from year 2560. That was three years before there was any war between Albentroy and Schlutonia. Waldorf Schluton made most of the videos but scientists made some other ones. In the first video, Schluton spoke into the camera.

“Hello. I am Waldorf Schluton and this video is a documentation of my beginning of great innovation. In this laboratory I have a team of experts working on something called anti-oxytocin. These injections will better the world because if they do what they should, they will completely eliminate romantic love from my nation. Not only will they do that, but they will also decimate extreme anger and hate. The people of my nation will be peaceful and the murder and aggravated assault rates will go extremely down. In a nation without these emotions, the people will be able to think clearly and logically. Romance is foolish and unnecessary and my nation will be much better without it.” Schluton said. “My best scientists are hard at work as of January 1st, 2560.” The camera clicks off. On another video a scientist begins speaking. He is young looking with ashy blonde hair and circular glasses.

“Many animal species mate with one another and go about their business. They procreate but yet feel no further connection to the animal they have procreated with. To many animals, procreation is not something intimate or personal, it is just something they do. So why does it have to be so significant for humans? Our team is looking into this. We want to find out exactly what romantic love is, what makes it happen, and how we can put an end to it. A world without romance can be more practical and safe for its inhabitants. Romantic love is something that we do not yet understand. Our mission is to understand it and control it.” The video clicks off. The next few videos are scientific journals rather than an explanation of why they are doing what they are doing. The videos go in depth on how the injections that they were engineering were being made and how they work with the body chemistry of a person to create certain physiological responses. I don't understand much of what the scientists are saying, but I do have a basic understanding of what the injections are and what they do. In the last journal, there is a video of a woman sitting in a reclining chair in an old doctors office. I can tell that this video was taken many years ago because the resolution of the video is a lot poorer than that of present times. Also, the doctors office doesn't look electronically up to date. There are less machines. The woman in the chair looks nervous as three male doctors and one female doctor in lab coats stand around her. Two of the men have clip boards, one has a large syringe, and the woman who looks significantly younger than the men stands there observing. The camera zooms in and the woman turns around and begins to speak. She has a caramel skin tone with thick dark hair that she keeps clipped back and away from her face. Her eyes are a shocking purple color, which is not actually shocking because she lived in the time period in which genetic engineering of embryos was becoming common place. In that time period, genetic engineering was new and exiting and people began doing all sorts of radical things to their children, like giving them purple eyes or making them have a larger capacity for intelligence. When things started getting out of hand with genetic engineering, it was outlawed for superficial reasons and only allowed for removing malignant or harmful genes and changing mutations. There are still few people with purple eyes, or red eyes, or orange eyes, or even hot pink eyes, but it is rare and I am always surprised to see these kinds of people.